It's like that Gap ad except with sad lettuce
March 27, 2022 7:35 PM   Subscribe

Straight from the I can't believe with all this internet we've got I've never seen this before, please enjoy this old commercial for the McDLT. [Technically this is a double post, I was packing to leave for college last time this hit mefi.]
posted by phunniemee (88 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
The late 80s perfectly distilled. This is why the 90s invented grunge and cynicism.
posted by Popular Ethics at 7:45 PM on March 27, 2022 [24 favorites]


I liked the McDLT.
posted by praemunire at 7:49 PM on March 27, 2022 [25 favorites]


Though the ad I remember was more like a cheer: "McD! LT!"
posted by praemunire at 7:50 PM on March 27, 2022


Why would the cheese be kept on the cold side, between the lettuce and tomato? The whole point of a cheeseburger is having melted cheese on the burger.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:51 PM on March 27, 2022 [26 favorites]


I, too, was a fan of the McDLT. The packaging, notsomuch.

I don’t remember this commercial, though!
posted by darkstar at 7:52 PM on March 27, 2022


I fucking loved the McDLT. They were really tasty.
posted by cooker girl at 7:53 PM on March 27, 2022 [2 favorites]


In that case I'm sorry I called the lettuce sad. I had no idea anything else was possible.
posted by phunniemee at 7:55 PM on March 27, 2022 [3 favorites]


I worked in a McD kitchen at the same time as hippybear, and went through the same ordeal. Hand-slicing tomatoes. Wrestling with that awful packaging. Although for some reason the styro was blank and we had to hand-place stickers with the McDLT artwork on them. I think they were still testing names or something at the time and didn't have the final artwork ready for the boxes.

It didn't even use rehydrated onions, which all the other sandwiches used at the time.

Ahem. The Quarter Pounder always used presliced white onions, not rehi.

Straight from the I can't believe with all this internet we've got I've never seen this before

This is just another example of the Internet Event Horizon.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:13 PM on March 27, 2022 [5 favorites]


but it was a good tasting burger

I'm here to voice a dissenting opinion.

In fact, it was specifically while consuming a lunchtime McDLT (since there was both a McDonalds and a Burger King literally across the road from where I worked at the time) that I realized "WTF am I doing wasting my money on this dreck? It's never as good as the ads promise! I'm done with fast food." And I was, and haven't been back to any fast-food chain since then.* Life's too short for mediocre food.

* Other than getting quite decent coffee at any McDonalds any time of morning or afternoon while traveling
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:13 PM on March 27, 2022 [5 favorites]


Maybe the cheese was on the cold side to provide a temperature barrier for the lettuce and tomato after the halves were combined?
posted by Comet Bug at 8:24 PM on March 27, 2022


Why does the whole vibe of this feel so much like an ‘80s version of Ya Got Trouble from The Music Man?
posted by mochapickle at 8:40 PM on March 27, 2022 [9 favorites]


This reminds me of a thing I've decided must be a fever dream of my youth, since nobody ever, ever mentions it? McDonald's giving out actual tiny records with meals that you could play on an actual record player and see if you had the one copy that had the song sung correctly to win some giant cash prize? Did I Mandela Effect this whole thing?
posted by Zargon X at 8:57 PM on March 27, 2022 [8 favorites]


Why does the whole vibe of this feel so much like an ‘80s version of Ya Got Trouble yt from The Music Man?

with a capital DLT, that rhymes with C, and that stands for Crap?
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:00 PM on March 27, 2022 [3 favorites]


with a capital DLT, that rhymes with C, and that stands for Crap?

McDonalds actually sells a product called the McWrap and every time I see it I’m convinced their product marketing team is deliberately trolling.
posted by mochapickle at 9:20 PM on March 27, 2022 [12 favorites]


I always remembered something liek “NEW MC D” 👏👏👏👏 L T

Those 4 claps were the epitomize of freshness
posted by capnsue at 10:04 PM on March 27, 2022 [2 favorites]


Loved the McD LT but hated the excessive styrofoam packaging. Nowadays if I want the superior burger, with lettuce and tomatoes cool and fresh, I head to an In'n'Out.

But really -- is it up to me to point out how this is not so much a goofily extreme McDonald's ad, but rather what was practically the pre-Costanza televised premiere of Jason Alexander?
posted by Rash at 10:15 PM on March 27, 2022 [9 favorites]


Why would the cheese be kept on the cold side, between the lettuce and tomato?

So it could be easily discarded by those of us who wanted a hamburger instead of a cheeseburger.
posted by Rash at 10:18 PM on March 27, 2022


Maybe the cheese was on the cold side to provide a temperature barrier for the lettuce and tomato after the halves were combined?

As it's depicted in the ad, the cheese is actually between the lettuce and tomato. The tomato is on top of the cold stack, meaning it would go against the burger when combined.

But I don't know whether the ad is depicting how the McDLT was actually assembled in the store, or an idealized version that McDonalds believed was more telegenic.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:55 PM on March 27, 2022


Also, we were hand slicing tomatoes with a really wicked multi-blade slicer every day. It was one of the freshest sandwiches they had at the time. It didn't even use rehydrated onions, which all the other sandwiches used at the time.


Early/mid-80's McDonald's employee here. The McDLT was after my time (the big thing when I was working there was the introduction of biscuits.) but IIRC the novel thing was that McDonald's had hitherto avoided tomatoes because of the problem with a consistent supply of fresh tomatoes, so hooray produce supply chain improvements, I guess?

And IIRC, we used fresh onions on quarter pounders, but rehydrated on all the 10-1 sandwiches (burgers/macs).
posted by mikelieman at 10:59 PM on March 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


Cripes, I'm concerned how young Jason whacks his head from side to side to include folks [flick] left and [flick] right. Is pensionable Jason reporting encephalopathy or neck issues?
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:59 PM on March 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


That's Jason Alexander from Sienfeld, right? Holy shit.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:04 AM on March 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


Other than the commercials, the most potent memory I have of the McDLT was the outrage generated by the packaging that made Styrofoam go from nearly inescapable to somewhat rarely used in fast food joints except for coffee cups. Maybe rare is a bit of an overstatement, but definitely not ubiquitous like it had been.
posted by wierdo at 2:19 AM on March 28, 2022 [4 favorites]


I thought the whole deal with this was that at the time the McDonald's business model was making a bunch of sandwiches ahead of time and keeping them warm under a heat lamp so they could serve large numbers of customers quickly and efficiently. Burger King's big sales pitch was Have it Your Way because they didn't make the burger until you ordered it and told them if you wanted it without pickles or whatever. I hardly ever went to McDonald's back then, but I had the impression that you could only get their sandwiches as-is whether you liked pickles or not.

So Burger King kept the lettuce cool by not making the burger until you ordered it, but McDs needed a bunch of styrofoam to make lettuce and tomato fit into their workflow. But it seems like nowadays McDonald's also makes sandwiches mostly to order and is just fine with add this or hold that.
posted by straight at 2:24 AM on March 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


They really seem to be cutting away as soon as anyone stands up too straight for too long to avoid drawing attention to his stature
posted by timdiggerm at 2:49 AM on March 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


I remember going out on purpose in the very early 1990s to try a "McLean" on the day they started selling them. I just laughed when the server asked me if I wanted extra mayonnaise.
posted by chavenet at 4:16 AM on March 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


I recall a burger served in two parts like this, except the marketing was something like "join the adventure" because you had to close/finish the burger yourself! I dont know if it was for the McDLT, but it's plausible timewise.
posted by anzen-dai-ichi at 4:35 AM on March 28, 2022


Ah, the burger wars of the last century. The ad agencies really got into it:
Burger King’s response to the McDLT
Hardees goes over the top
posted by TedW at 4:37 AM on March 28, 2022 [4 favorites]


I hardly ever went to McDonald's back then, but I had the impression that you could only get their sandwiches as-is whether you liked pickles or not.

A McDonald’s hack that people still use to this day is to order their burger with some minor modification like “no pickles” or “no onions” so they would have to make it fresh. Of course I’m sure they would sometimes just take an existing burger and scrape off the unwanted components. I never felt it was necessary as a 15 minute old Big Mac is not really any different from a freshly assembled Big Mac. Even more so if they have been sitting in a bag because you got your stuff to go and had to take it somewhere else.
posted by TedW at 4:51 AM on March 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


Now I want to see him as George Costanza complaining to Jerry about the McDLT. Or at the McDonald's counter telling the cashier over and over how he wants the cheese to be on the burger side so it will melt.
posted by FencingGal at 5:05 AM on March 28, 2022 [6 favorites]


The costumes are the business district lunch crowd version of the Village People. (The Glendale People?) Fun.
posted by eotvos at 5:16 AM on March 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


I hardly ever went to McDonald's back then, but I had the impression that you could only get their sandwiches as-is whether you liked pickles or not.

1970's Burger King has got you covered.

"Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us..."
posted by jeremias at 5:22 AM on March 28, 2022 [8 favorites]


I hardly ever went to McDonald's back then, but I had the impression that you could only get their sandwiches as-is whether you liked pickles or not.

When I worked at McDonald's in the 70s and 80s, we were told people could have something taken off of a sandwich, but not added on and that this was in some way a copyright issue. So you could get your burger without pickles, but you couldn't get Big Mac sauce on a hamburger or ketchup on a Big Mac. You could get Big Mac sauce in a cup and put it on a burger yourself though.
posted by FencingGal at 6:06 AM on March 28, 2022


Someone has compiled a video of Jason Alexander commercials.

His career on Broadway in a Sondheim musical and playing opposite Liza Minnelli must have set him up for this dashing performance. I also didn't realize he was on E.R around the time the commercial was made.
posted by credulous at 6:32 AM on March 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


A McDonald’s hack that people still use to this day is to order their burger with some minor modification like “no pickles” or “no onions” so they would have to make it fresh.

They did away with the the warming bins years ago (at least in the US) so everything is made “fresh”.
posted by jmauro at 6:47 AM on March 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


I have heard of people ordering their fries with no salt so that they'll be freshly made, though.
posted by mosst at 6:51 AM on March 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


Being reminded about the McDLT and its packaging reminds me of how Little Caesar's pizza used to come in giant cardboard and paper packages that were nearly impossible to carry or fit in a car. The '80s, man, WTF.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 6:54 AM on March 28, 2022


The commercial itself is just slightly before my time, but I'm really feeling the nostalgia for the OP's single link to an MPEG-1 file. It's hard to believe that 2004 was pre-YouTube.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:58 AM on March 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


So Burger King kept the lettuce cool by not making the burger until you ordered it

Nope. I worked at a Burger King in the late 80s/early 90s. Here's the process for making a Whopper, at least back then:

The frozen patty goes onto a conveyor belt that takes it through the flame broiler. The patties only have grill lines on one side. The bun goes into another belt higher up where it gets slightly toasted. When they come out, the patties and buns are assembled and put into a steamer bin where they stay warm.

How many burgers and buns you made ahead of time was based on the time of day and/or how busy it was.

You're technically supposed to throw out any burgers that have been in the steamer bin for more than, I think 20 minutes. This almost never happened. They stayed in that bin until they were used. Sometimes this was longer than anyone might believe.

From there the person making the burgers would assemble the completed burger. If you were making something with cheese on it you would put a slice of cheese on it and put it in a microwave for a few seconds to melt the cheese and "freshen up" the burger. Then you'd put the rest of the stuff on the burger. In the case of a whopper, this was mayo, lettuce and tomato on the top bun, pickles, ketchup and onions on the patty. You'd then assemble the whole thing and wrap it or put it in a box.

Then you'd toss it under the heat lamp. How many you made ahead of time was, again, determined by the time of day and/or how busy it was. You're supposed to throw out any burgers that were under the heat lamps for more than 10 minutes. Again, this almost never happened and burgers would stay until they were sold or a manager came along and threw them all out.

In the case of a special order, you'd assemble it with a burger from the steamer bin. So, yeah, it was very likely fresher than a standard burger, but not by much. It never stayed under the heat lamp very long but when it was busy neither did the standard burgers.

Occasionally someone was aware of the process and would ask that a burger be made fresh. We were a 24 hours store so later in my "career" there we started making everything to order in the off hours.

You would think that after working there and seeing some of the stuff I saw I would avoid fast food. You'd be wrong. I long ago accepted that shit happens in commercial kitchens, shit we're better off not thinking about, but food is delicious and food poisoning is still somewhat rare.

The store I worked at was a truck stop so things might have been different at "normal" stores. I assume things have improved somewhat since I worked there. I believe health codes might be a bit more strict now.

Some day I'm going to write a book. I'll probably have most of it completed if I just cut and paste the BK-related comments I've made on this website over the years.
posted by bondcliff at 7:04 AM on March 28, 2022 [16 favorites]


It's easy not to appreciate just how good an actor Jason Alexander is. This clip of him showing Larry David how to play George (who is based on David) really shows how Alexander is a trained actor and David . . . is not.
posted by FencingGal at 7:10 AM on March 28, 2022 [10 favorites]


McDonald's giving out actual tiny records with meals that you could play on an actual record player and see if you had the one copy that had the song sung correctly to win some giant cash prize?

Big Mac, McDLT, a Quarter Pounder with some cheese,
Filet o'fish, a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a happy meal
McNuggets, tasty golden frenchfries regular or larger sizes,
salads: chef or garden or a chicken salad Oriental,
big big breakfast egg mcmuffins hot hot cakes with sausage maybe...

(and I can't retrieve the rest from memory so we all lose.)
posted by kimberussell at 7:15 AM on March 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


That BK marketing in the 70s was on fire. I still get the “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce” jingle re-surfacing in its entirety in my memories every now and then, and I’m sure it’s been over 40 years since I actually heard it on tv or radio.
posted by darkstar at 7:20 AM on March 28, 2022 [5 favorites]


We got one of those cheap McDonalds flexi discs in the weekly newspaper flyers and I begged my uncle who had a really high-end turntable to play it. And he did it--but only once.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:26 AM on March 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


I remember a David Letterman monologue during these times where he said something like, "Lettuce AND tomato? On a cheeseburger? How'd they think of that?"
posted by Furnace of Doubt at 7:56 AM on March 28, 2022


Fanbyte's "You Love To See It" podcast did an entire hour and a half on this commercial, which may be one of my favorite podcast episodes of all time (direct MP3 link).
posted by Four String Riot at 8:00 AM on March 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


Early/mid-80's McDonald's employee here. The McDLT was after my time (the big thing when I was working there was the introduction of biscuits.) but IIRC the novel thing was that McDonald's had hitherto avoided tomatoes because of the problem with a consistent supply of fresh tomatoes, so hooray produce supply chain improvements, I guess?

I read this and thought, this can't be right, it's right there in the Big Mac - and immediately rattled off the ingredients -- and lo and behold, no tomatoes! I am shocked!

Because thanks to that commercial, even though I can never remember crucial information like where I put my 1099s or what my latest password strings are, I will always remember what goes into a Big Mac, even though we keep kosher and though I have never had one - and so will my son, who memorized the song when he was around 5 and we were waiting for a bus that wouldn't come, which was highly entertaining. (For a long time he could also sing Look For The Union Label, but that doesn't seem to have stuck. Sigh).
posted by Mchelly at 8:01 AM on March 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


That BK marketing in the 70s was on fire. I still get the “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce” jingle re-surfacing in its entirety in my memories every now and then, and I’m sure it’s been over 40 years since I actually heard it on tv or radio.

I haven't thought of that ad in decades, but the second I read your comment, my brain chimed in to complete the rhyme: "... special orders don't upset us!"

Something something strange potency of cheap music something.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:09 AM on March 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


Jason Alexander went to the same high school as my wife, and overlapped with one of her older brothers. My mother-in-law would sometimes mention how good he was in all the school plays. No one has commented on whether he danced down the hallways singing about the school lunches, though.
posted by mollweide at 8:23 AM on March 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


Hollywood keeps turning out bland sequel after bland sequel and yet somehow we haven't gotten a 2020's updated version of this? Money left on the table if you ask me...
posted by mincus at 8:29 AM on March 28, 2022


Wow BK goes HAM in that response video … “This is a Burger King town.” Vaguely threatening.

Also, I grew up in the 70s/80s and I just now in this thread realized that the D does not stand for an ingredient. BLT = bacon. MLT = mutton. DLT = WHAT IS THE D FOR PLEASE HOPE ME … uh. Oh.
posted by freecellwizard at 9:03 AM on March 28, 2022


You down with McDLT? No. No I am not.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:26 AM on March 28, 2022


Young Mr. Alexander has a bit of a young Shatner vibe.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:27 AM on March 28, 2022


WHAT IS THE D FOR PLEASE HOPE ME

I think 'Deluxe'?

I loved the McDLT.

My hazy memory says that McDonald's deal with the Sierra Club to get rid of styrofoam happened around the same time they decided the McDLT was too expensive to make, so might as well get rid of both at once. That might be incorrect, but it doesn't seem like it would have been be too difficult to duplicate the packaging in cardboard.
posted by eye of newt at 9:38 AM on March 28, 2022


Does anyone else remember the QLT? This was discontinued in the early 1970s but it was a Quarter Pounder w/ Lettuce and Tomato. There's very little info out there that I can find, though I did find a photo of the packaging so I know I'm not going crazy.
posted by bondcliff at 9:44 AM on March 28, 2022


McDonald's was often called "Micky D's", so that's where the "D" comes in.

*awkward cough*

Anyway, that "Hold the pickles..." video posted above by jeremias gave me some kind of anaphylactic nostalgia.
posted by Horkus at 10:35 AM on March 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


All of the McDonald sandwiches were better when they were wrapped in paper. They were better-assembled and slightly steamed. Yum. Now the boxed sandwiches are sad toppled stacks, barely warm, and dry. The Filet-O-Fish is inedible now.
posted by sjswitzer at 11:08 AM on March 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


Wait, so was the Big'n'Tasty basically the DLT redux, without the packaging?
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:36 AM on March 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


When I was in high school in the 80s, when the DJ played Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' by Journey, when they got to the "na na na-na-na" part, we would all sing the following:

I want a Big Mac
A Quarter Pounder,
Cookies and french fries,
a large coke to go.

I have no idea where this came from. I lived in a very small town in Michigan, where we only got a McDonald's when I was maybe a sophomore or junior. It was built right across from the high school and next to a freeway interchange, and its extremely tall sign would forever after feature in the backgrounds of action photos taken during football games.

Was this a wider-than-Michigan phenomenon?

I remember going to a college dance while visiting a friend, and discovering that my college's practice of chanting "HEY! GET LAID GET FUCKED!" during Billy Idol's "Mony Mony" had not gotten so far as mid-Ohio. It goes like this:

Billy Idol: Here she comes now, saying Mony Mony
Everybody at the frat party, on the following eight beats: Hey [beat beat] Get laid get fucked [beat]
Billy Idol: Shoot em up, come on, Mony Mony
Everybody at the frat party, on the following eight beats: Hey [beat beat] Get laid get fucked [beat]

Did any of y'all do this or anything similar?
posted by Well I never at 12:08 PM on March 28, 2022


Since this thread has become a repository for weird fast food marketing campaigns from the late 20th century, there is always the time McDonald’s co-opted Bertolt Brecht. (Full disclosure: I still have a Mac Tonight Christmas tree ornament.)
posted by TedW at 12:24 PM on March 28, 2022 [6 favorites]


A McDonald’s hack that people still use to this day is to order their burger with some minor modification like “no pickles” or “no onions” so they would have to make it fresh. Of course I’m sure they would sometimes just take an existing burger and scrape off the unwanted components. I never felt it was necessary as a 15 minute old Big Mac is not really any different from a freshly assembled Big Mac.

There once was a MAD Magazine comic strip that used exactly this premise.
posted by Gelatin at 12:24 PM on March 28, 2022


Mac Tonight

Forever burned into my brain, stored somewhere near the old HBO intro and TMNT episodes.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:38 PM on March 28, 2022 [6 favorites]


I have vague memories of a show (Electric Company?) doing a parody of the Burger King commercial, with people making ridiculous requests, and the staff doing them, with a smiling "have it your way!"
When I was growing up, we had Jack's, nearby. They're still around and have had the same spokeswoman for something like 40 years, although they could be running the same commercials. It's hard to tell.
posted by Spike Glee at 12:51 PM on March 28, 2022


For me the immediate memory from that Burger King jingle is the Devo take on it. I think they were on to something...
posted by zoinks at 1:31 PM on March 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


Why would the cheese be kept on the cold side, between the lettuce and tomato? The whole point of a cheeseburger is having melted cheese on the burger.

Melting cheese is better than melted cheese on burgers in my opinion, though that doesn't explain why it's between the lettuce and tomato.
posted by mikesch at 1:56 PM on March 28, 2022


The correct mony mony chant is hey, hey what, get laid get fucked
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:06 PM on March 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


Did any of y'all do this or anything similar?

Yes, we did it in high school in a small town in Indiana. I graduated in 1988. But GCU Sweet and Full of Grace is correct: it's "Hey! Hey what? Get laid get fucked."
posted by cooker girl at 2:13 PM on March 28, 2022


but I can't make it fit unless it's:

here she comes now singing Mony Mony

[Hey!...Hey, what!]

Shoot em up, come on, Mony Mony

[Get laid!...Get fucked!]



My Dad never taught me the dirty lyrics to "Louie Louie," I will not be denied again

posted by snuffleupagus at 2:21 PM on March 28, 2022


Did any of y'all do this or anything similar?

College in NW Indiana in the late 80s - I remember like you do, though.
posted by COD at 3:16 PM on March 28, 2022


I remember going to a college dance while visiting a friend, and discovering that my college's practice of chanting "HEY! GET LAID GET FUCKED!" during Billy Idol's "Mony Mony" had not gotten so far as mid-Ohio. It goes like this:

I had a friend in high school named Mona who hated that song, but would not tell me why. I never went to dances so I never encountered this ritual until I heard about it probably 20 years later. This was in mid-Ohio, btw.
posted by straight at 3:52 PM on March 28, 2022


practically the pre-Costanza televised premiere of Jason Alexander?

Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling..... Ah! THANK YOU!
posted by Wild_Eep at 3:59 PM on March 28, 2022


during Billy Idol's "Mony Mony"

Technically, Billy Idol's cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' 1968 song. Just FYI.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:08 PM on March 28, 2022 [6 favorites]


I don't think I ever actually had the McDLT when it came out.

I was a kid then but I do remember having strong opinions about the stupid oversized styrofoam clamshell packaging and how the whole hot side cold side thing was ridiculous and unnecessary because it was basically a direct result of how McDonald's pre-made giant racks of burgers in warming trays and being able to do that mental marketing math even as a kid.

I also remember those 80s era styrofoam packages littered everywhere in my suburban town and how they'd never break down.

Not long after this era and shortly before they stopped pre-making sandwiches I was a homeless runaway and basically a street punk.

There were a few of us living in a camp alongside a freeway and we had a schedule to go dumpster diving at the nearest McDonald's about a mile away where the very nice and most Latina ladies working at that location would throw all of the burgers in big double bagged trash bag and then pour just a smidgen of coffee grinds or something on the bag to maliciously comply with their marching orders from management but not render the giant bag of burgers inedible or otherwise totally disgusting.

It was here that I learned - long, long before the Supersize Me movie - the horrifying fact that McDonald's burgers were basically shelf stable in very warm outdoor SoCal temps in a cardboard box with no refrigeration required. They eventually just dehydrated and became too tough to chew. Not even the buns would get moldy or start breaking down. They just slowly turned into horrible rubber hockey pucks.

It's appalling but I never once got sick or food poisoning from eating them even several days later without being refrigerated.

Unfortunately I also learned that a diet of nothing but McDonald's, 40 ounces of malt liquor and half-smoked butts harvested from the ashtrays of the nearest mall for several months on end could give you a wicked case of scurvy.
posted by loquacious at 4:28 PM on March 28, 2022 [4 favorites]


Was another McWorker during peak McDLT times and can confirm all of the above. Terrifying tomato slicer, mayonnaise gun with serious throw (especially when the tube was new), stupid clamshell packaging.

The thing is though: the cool side was in the foam box in the same heat rack as the hot side, so the lettuce and tomato got limp PDQ even with the special separator in play.

It was also a real education in how one product could really fuck up a good standardized workflow: special patty size that required special grilling times or a special clamshell grill, using special ingredients with a special box. We would never make them in advance except during the most peak times (fri nite, sat and sun lunch) because having to waste them after 10 minutes totally clobbered the waste numbers for that shift and that was a Bad Thing. The only thing I hated more than McDLTs was custom orders, and the only thing I hated more than custom orders was the fucking apple pies....because they were never ready and they took half an hour to deep fry from frozen.

Further to some fragments earlier in the thread: it's "hey motherfucker get laid get fucked". Also, I can confirm that dropping a condiment gun into a deep fryer made a huge mess and got you in a lot of trouble. Also, you can make shuriken with two slices of cheese filled with ketchup. also the grill cleaner was a purple gel that we called "Grimace cum".

and all of that was 35 years ago for me, and I still go to the drive through once a week because I like their coffee and am addicted to egg mcmuffins, the pinnacle of breakfast sandwich technology.
posted by hearthpig at 5:05 PM on March 28, 2022 [5 favorites]


the fucking apple pies....because they were never ready and they took half an hour to deep fry from frozen

I must have eaten their pies before they stopped deep frying them, but I can't remember how they compare to the current version.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:49 PM on March 28, 2022


the horrifying fact that McDonald's burgers were basically shelf stable

As Kenji showed at Serious Eats, any burger of that size & shape will not rot, even homemade burgers.
posted by timdiggerm at 6:50 PM on March 28, 2022 [5 favorites]


I too was working at McD's when the McDLT came out. It may have been the first sandwich created by focus-grouping. They wanted to find out why people preferred the Whopper (actual tomato slice and non-shredded lettuce), and what people didn't like about the Whopper that could be improved upon (lettuce and tomato tended to be warm and wilted by eating time).

The store owner said it was designed as a "Whopper stopper."
posted by Brachinus at 5:12 AM on March 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


The store owner said it was designed as a "Whopper stopper."

Burger King vs McDonalds used to be a giant rivalry. it's kind of hard to get it nowadays that Subway (23k) has nearly twice as many restaurants in the US as McDonalds (13k), Starbucks has 2000 more, and Burger King is pretty far down the list, floating in the Taco Bell/Dominos range with barely 7000 restaurants.

They used to be #1 and #2, but in the '90s Burger King just kind of gave up.

McDonalds actually sells a product called the McWrap and every time I see it I’m convinced their product marketing team is deliberately trolling.
They've been trolling for a long time. Witness the "Big'n'Tasty" -- you remove one 'T' on the yellow plastic letter sign and what have you got?
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:55 AM on March 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


You’ve got a random yellow plastic letter T.

Which tastes awful, even with ketchup.
posted by mochapickle at 8:15 AM on March 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


Witness the "Big'n'Tasty" -- you remove one 'T' on the yellow plastic letter sign and what have you got?

Big'n'Tasy?
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:24 AM on March 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


(sounds like a trigger-happy cop carrying a non-lethal weapon)
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:25 AM on March 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


We definitely called it the Big'n'Nasty in college (and we loved it. Bring it back.)

(sounds like a trigger-happy cop carrying a non-lethal weapon)

I can see the Paul Blart tie-in merch now.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:34 AM on March 29, 2022


Did any of y'all do this or anything similar?

There was an AskMe about this (how the hell do I remember a 12-year-old AskMe)

(Hey get asked get laid get trashed)
posted by Pallas Athena at 5:11 PM on March 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


I also remember those 80s era styrofoam packages littered everywhere in my suburban town and how they'd never break down

Not so much those but the Styrofoam wrappers from glass pop bottles were everywhere.
posted by Mitheral at 7:39 AM on March 30, 2022 [3 favorites]


You know that feeling when something seems so familiar?
That ad's beginning is isomorphic to Adriano Celentano's "Prisencolinensinainciusol"
posted by Chitownfats at 1:17 PM on March 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


That ad's beginning is isomorphic to Adriano Celentano's "Prisencolinensinainciusol"
Well, I know what I'm doing this weekend. Unless someone beats me to it, which I hope for.
posted by eotvos at 1:23 PM on March 30, 2022


> "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us..."

Why has my brain held on to this but I don't know anyone's phone numbers from this century:

♬...Hold the lettuce, hold the pickles
That will cost you ten more nickels
All we want to do is have it our way
Have it our way
Or go someplace else
Have it our way
Or go someplace else...♬
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:34 PM on March 30, 2022


> the Styrofoam wrappers from glass pop bottles were everywhere

I haven't thought about those for so long but now I desperately want to peel one.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:34 PM on March 30, 2022 [3 favorites]


God I know what you mean! So evil but so so peelable...
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:37 PM on March 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


In a single narrow strip! And then stuff it down the neck of the bottle.
posted by mochapickle at 8:42 PM on March 30, 2022 [3 favorites]


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